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Thursday, November 6, 2008

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Sometimes the media sits up and takes notice of something going on in the world of cakery. And sometimes those news stories are just odd or interesting enough that I want to share them with all of you.

And that's how new categories are born, boys and girls.

Jen: [in announcer voice] "Today in Cake News: Better Art Through Cupcakes." [turning to face side camera] "The Buffalo News reported today that ZillyRosen of ZILLYCAKES in Buffalo, NY, made a portrait of president-elect Obama using nothing but 1,240 cupcakes!"

Weather Guy: "Wow, that's a lot of cupcakes!"

Jen: "It sure is, Weather Guy. I guess you could call this one sweet piece of art!"

Both: "Ahahahahahah!"

Thanks to Jenny B. and Joy for sharing the link. And yes, before you all ask: I AM relieved that Zilly didn't connect the cupcakes to make the world's largest CCC.Talk about a close call!

Well, the cupcakes themselves could obviously be baked ahead of time. And given that each one is frosted in a single solid color, she could have done most, if not all, of that ahead of time too. (Another bonus of NOT frosting them all together as a CCC monstrosity!) And then later arranged them to form a digital "black and white" portrait of whichever candidate won. I suspect she chose blue because it's a little bit more appetizing than grey...or red, though I suppose I could see doing this in red-and-white for McCain.

I love this blog, but I don't think you have to be quite so diplomatic. (I don't think you need a disclaimer at the top of a post about an Obama cupcake tribute.) Hopefully, your readership can handle something like this. Thanks!

Thanks for the positive remarks, and in answer to your questions:1. I started planning on Friday and Saturday, baked all of them on Sunday and Monday, worked with a friend to cover them all with Italian meringue buttercream and fondant circles on Monday until 10pm, set them up on Tuesday to photograph in my friend's studio, then set them up again on Wednesday at the Obama headquarters! 2. I used blue for the democrats, and made this to send my creative energy up into the "ether" in the days before the election in hopes of Obama's win. BTW, I only made Obama, and I would have set it up and served it even if he lost, in celebration of his historic campaign and in honor or all the volunteers and the work they did nationwide. Buffalo volunteers on his campaign took the cupcakes home and enjoyed them.3. Yes, you clever counter! There were 1248 in the original design but my family ate too many chocolate ones unbeknownst to me, so I had to take off the bottom line of the design, thus 1216 cupcakes. Not even close to what I would call a wreck, though. If anyone was wondering, the background is vanilla cake w/ vanilla frosting but Obama is chocolate cake w/ vanilla icing.

Hey, Zilly! Glad you found us over here. (And just to be clear, I don't consider your creation to be a Wreck at all!)

Hey hey HEY, now, everyone, let's not get all carried away calling this a CCC, mmmkay? It's a cupcake MOSAIC, NOT a cupcake-cake. Remember, CCC = bad. Non-connected cupcakes without mounds of goopy icing in all the cracks = gooood.

It's great to see the finished portrait -- they showed Zilly in the process of very carefully setting it up on the NBC news in D.C. last night. I was really impressed -- it's great to see a CCC that's actually creative!

What would have been cool is if they had given it more detail by coloring each cupcake with more than one color. It sounds like a pretty intense project, though. I give it two frosting-covered thumbs up! *licks frosting off thumbs* yum!

It is happy to see your posting. Yes really informative article. I will tell this information again to my friend, oh yes I suggest you to check my blog on www.cake-world.blogspot.com , I hope the article on my blog will be usefull for you… and we can share each other. thank you… ;-)

DANG!!!! I was all set to direct you to that story. I was gonna do it this morning but I was running late for work. Thats two now...the puzzle cake one and now this. I gotta be a little bit quicker on the uptake here

Congrats Zilly on such great work! Politics aside, that gal worked extremely hard to make not only all those cupcakes, but to set them up. I am in awe. And since I also live in the Elmwood Village, I cannot wait to order all my cakes from her. I love seeing a local business woman get some good press. Congratulations again, Zilly Cakes!

As a baker, I can only praise Zilly and hope to god that we see more beautiful cupcake mosaics like this one, and less of those horrible.. HORRIBLE cupcake cakes. Seriously though Zilly, you did an amazing job! It reminds me of the baking version of pixel art!

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A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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